A car thief who stole a £47,000 Mercedes from a disabled man saved himself from prison by writing a letter to a Teesside judge.

The motorist dropped the keys to his E320 Merc in a Redcar Esplanade arcade on April 22, Teesside Crown Court heard.

They were found by Christian Dobbing, 33, a man with a criminal record for dishonesty and vehicle crime.

"You really couldn't make it up," said his defence barrister Ian West.

"They are come across not by a public-spirited individual who takes them to the cashier and the owner is quickly restored to his car keys - they fall to the feet of a man whose predilection for dishonesty means that he picks them up. He finds the car. It was right outside.

"Mr Dobbing, who's got his return half of the train ticket to Darlington in his pocket, when presented with a ride home in a £47,000 car, something he's not likely to ever see again, takes the opportunity."

Inside the vehicle was the owner's motorised scooter and oxygen bottle.

Mr West said Dobbing's crime was a "piece of compulsively stupid, opportunistic dishonesty". He drove it until he ran out of petrol, then abandoned it with the keys inside.

Someone else then took it, gave it false plates and hid it under tarpaulin where it was later found, he added.

Dobbing, of Cricket Field Row, Darlington, admitted theft yesterday.

His fingerprints were found in the vehicle and he was identified from CCTV footage in the arcade, said prosecutor Paul Newcombe.

Dobbing wrote a letter to Judge David Bryant, who told him: "It is a good letter, and I hope you mean what you say in it, because it's made me change my mind.

"I was going to pass a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment immediately."

Instead, he passed a four-month sentence suspended for 18 months with supervision, 100 hours' unpaid work, a 22-day Think First programme and activities to improve work skills.